


come back and haunt me

by Jade_Sabre



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 04:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16509089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Sabre/pseuds/Jade_Sabre
Summary: She can't let him go without having the last word.  Or a last several words.  And he can't help but listen.  A post-"High Noon" failed romance fix-it fic, of a sort, for when an email just isn't enough.





	come back and haunt me

**Author's Note:**

> I finished "High Noon" and my Ryder literally refused to allow me to keep playing until she had a chance to say her piece, so here she is.
> 
> Title comes specifically from [this cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsUK4mlv9m0) of "The Scientist," to which I wrote this fic.
> 
> Thanks as always to Quark, who's suffered through my idea of a happy ending more times than I can count.

Reyes stood over his desk, bracing his hands on his desk on either side of the computer and watching as reports from his various contacts scrolled across the screen too quickly for him to comprehend.  For the most part everyone seemed all right for now, but it wouldn’t last.  Neither would this safe house, though it was in the middle of a once-toxic mountain range and only accessible by shuttle.  He’d have to move. They’d all have to move, if not go off-world outright, but quietly, a few at a time, resetting a chess board that had been not so much flipped as thrown out the window.  And in the meantime, everyone who was standing still was in danger.  Including him.  
  
Shit.  Shit shit shit shit _shit_.  
  
He pressed his finger to the screen to stop the feed, then slid it down again, and again, scrolling back to the top, hoping to find something to latch onto, somewhere to start again, and a voice said, “You should have told me.”  
_  
Shit_.  
  
He spun around, gun coming up instinctively—but he wasn’t the best shot, which was why he’d gone with this plan in the first place, and anyway there was no one to be seen.  And then he registered _who_ was speaking and froze, gun aimed haphazardly at a corner, and she said, “Wrong direction.”

Of course he couldn’t see her.  Of course she was here—but she _shouldn’t_ be here, and he tried to summon anger or wit or even panic to overcome the gut-wrenching pit in his stomach; he was in for it and he deserved it and as much as he didn’t want to see her ever again he desperately wanted—oh, it didn’t matter.  She was here, and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.  
  
“Would it help if I moved?” she asked, her voice a little modulated, coming through her helmet’s speaker.  “You’re not doing a very good job of finishing what you started.”  
  
“You have the advantage,” he said, “I’m afraid,” but he couldn’t muster the flirt and it sounded weak in his ears and the only saving grace was that he’d heard the tremble in her voice that told him that she didn’t want him to see her, either.  He could have the upper hand, if he could find his way to it.  
  
“Yes,” she said, and then she didn’t say anything else.  He strained his senses for what she had taught him—the sound of her breath or the shift of her clothing, the ripple in the air, a too-short shadow—but the only light in the room at the moment came from the screen, casting everything in shades of dark-hued orange and black.  He comforted himself with the fact that the cloak didn’t last forever, and eventually she’d have to show herself.  But that of course left open the question of what he would do when he saw her.  Did she actually expect him to shoot her?  Was he so sure he wouldn’t?  
  
He turned, slowly, raising his gun to about the height of her chest, keeping it steady, and then he heard a familiar _click-hum_ -silence behind him as she dropped and re-engaged the stealth field.  He didn’t bother whirling around; by the time he did she’d be behind him again.  Instead he held his breath and listened for a scuff of boot against stone that didn’t come; instead he said, “How did you find me?”  
  
She snorted somewhere to his left.  “SAM was calculating your possible trajectories before you even hopped on the shuttle.  He knew where you would land before you did.”  He had the strong impression she was tapping the side of her head, though he couldn’t see it.  “Inseparable AI in the brain, remember?”  
  
He remembered.  
  
  
  
  
  
The door to his lair slid open and he looked up from his omni-tool, preparing to tell the interloper to leave while also sending a message to Kian to berate him for allowing interruptions.  But the words died on his lips, for standing there, shoulders a little hunched, head a little ducked, looking less a hero and more a teenager out after curfew, was Pathfinder Ryder, her eyes roving around the room as if attempting to avoid looking directly at him.  
  
He closed his omni-tool and leaned back.  This should be good.  “Pathfinder,” he said, and her eyes darted to him and she froze.  “To what do I owe the pleasure?”  
  
She hesitated a moment more, and then the unease fell away and she straightened, giving her head a little toss to settle her ponytail before meeting his gaze coolly and saying, “You owe me a drink.”  
  
He found himself sitting up in response and shifted into a lean forward, resting his forearm on his knee.  “Oh?”  
  
“Yeah,” she said, crossing her arms.  “That’s what you said.”  
  
“Did I,” he said, mostly to test if she could keep up the stare, and like clockwork the line of her lips thinned and her chin jutted forward petulantly—but she didn’t break eye contact.  
  
“Yeah,” she said again.  “Don’t make me go telling everyone you’re not a man of your word.”  
  
He laughed, and startled himself with the _truth_ of his laughter, of his genuine amusement.  “Oh,” he said, “no one would accuse me of that.  And everyone knows I never pay for my drinks.”  
  
“Oh,” she said, and her shoulders slumped again and she went back to looking around the room, this time as if possibly searching for an escape.  “Well, in that case—”  
  
“But that doesn’t mean I never order any,” he said, leaning back in his seat and gesturing to the couch beside him.  “Come, sit.  What are you having?”  
  
She froze again at the invitation, still avoiding his gaze, and said, “Um,” while stiffly crossing the room to perch on the edge of the rickety chair on the adjacent wall.  “What’s…good?”  
  
He considered several responses as he watched her study the ceiling.  She was less sitting in and more crouched over the chair, tensed to run, and so he dismissed his more risqué options.  As eager as she’d been to flirt out in the open…but now, on his turf, yes, of course, she’d be a little more cautious.  Still, he hadn’t expected the Pathfinder to be… _scared_.  Of him?  She had no reason to be, unless she suspected—no, she was far too new to Kadara to think—and furthermore, if she’d suspected him, she’d be watching _him_ , not the flickering death throes of one of the lights in the ceiling.  And he had no reason to be anything other than gracious and welcoming, and perhaps that would help.  
  
“Not much, honestly,” he said.  “Sloane keeps the best stuff for her people over at the Outcast headquarters.  But Kian mixes up some drinkable swill.  You have a preference?  Fruity?”  Her nose wrinkled, and so he said, “Ship fuel?”  
  
“I don’t mind a burn,” she said, almost absently, and then looked surprised at herself and finally glanced at him, not quite shy.  “But I’d like to still be able to feel my tongue afterwards.”  
  
He pressed his lips together to choke down his laughter but she saw it in his face and blushed and said, “I didn’t—”  
  
“Batarian vodka it is,” he said, taking pity on her, flipping open his omni-tool long enough to place the order.  As he closed it he said, “More flavor than the human variety, though it is…an acquired taste.”  
  
“Of what?  Blood?  The bones of their enemies?”  The red receded from her cheeks as she narrowed her eyes in thought.  “Thresher maw acid?”  
  
He inclined his head, briefly.  “More the latter,” he said.  “You’ve tried it before?”  
  
“Nope,” she said.  “Can’t say I’ve ever even met a batarian.”  She frowned again.  “Who brought batarian vodka to Andromeda?”  
  
“Krogans, I think,” he said.  “A little break from all the ryncol, I suppose.”  
  
“Mm,” she said, in a way that made him think perhaps she didn’t know what ryncol was.  Surely not.  Though if she’d never even met a batarian…  
  
“So,” he said, resting his hands in his lap, tapping his knee with one finger as he watched her, “this is your first visit to outlaw territory?”  
  
“Yeah,” she said.  
  
“How do you find the hospitality?”  
  
“Not…as bad as I was expecting,” she said, looking around the room, chancing another glance at him.  “Director Tann sort of painted a more…bloodthirsty picture.”  
  
“Well, the mutiny,” and he gave a half-shrug, “that was bad business.  But the outlaws weren’t the only ones shedding blood at the time.”  
  
Her lips twisted.  “Yeah,” she said, “I got that impression.”  This time she looked at him long enough for him to meet her gaze and see the question forming there, the awkward suspicion, and he knew what she was going to ask before she opened her mouth to say, “Were you…one of them?”  
  
“The mutineers?  Certainly not,” he said, and he saw her relax a fraction more, thought she actually made contact with the seat beneath her for the first time.  “But I saw how they were treated, and I decided…better to take my chances out here, than keep working for Tann and his ilk.”  
  
“He is a piece of work,” she said, and then she winced.  “I probably shouldn’t say that out loud.”  
  
“Hey,” he said, gesturing around the room, “you’re in outlaw territory now.  No one’s going to report you to the Nexus.”  She winced again, and he cocked his head and said, “Not in here, anyway.  Why, do you have spies aboard your ship?”  
  
“Not spies,” she said.  “Just an uptight little…”  She shrank into her chair, her back finally hitting it.  “Shouldn’t speak ill of my crew, either.”  
  
“Ah,” he said, placing a finger to his lips as he regarded her and she looked at the ceiling again as if she really, really wished he would quit looking at her.  The dull light gave the scar across her stubborn jaw a waxy shine, and he said, “A safer subject, then.  What happened to your chin?”  
  
A gloved hand—oh bless the stars, she was wearing her enviro suit, though it looked as though she’d elected to bring only a submachine gun along—rubbed the scar reflexively.  “This?  Oh, this.  Um.  High school.  Chemistry experiment gone terribly wrong.”  
  
“And it got on your face?”  He was equally appalled by his lack of tact and his curiosity in learning the answer.  
  
She shrugged, a little sheepishly.  “I…it splashed?  And I rubbed at it?  And that was…a mistake?  Thank God I was wearing gloves, but uh…missed my eyes too, that was good…yeah, not my best day,” she said, running her fingers along it, eyes raised to the ceiling not in avoidance but reflection.  “Probably one of the worst I had before coming to Andromeda.”  
  
“And since then?”  
  
“Oh,” she said, “since then they’ve almost all been exponentially worse.”  
  
“Ah,” he said; she wasn’t so much smiling as trying to and falling into a rueful grimace instead.  “Well, if there is anything I can do to improve your stay in our new galaxy—”  
  
“Eh,” she said.  
  
“—or at least my humble corner of it, Pathfinder, please, let me know.”  
  
“Eh,” she said again.  “That drink would be nice.”  
  
He nodded and went to open his omni-tool just as the doors slid open and Madeera, one of the asari waitresses, sauntered in with a tray with two glasses on it.  “Your brandy, Reyes,” she said, setting the snifter before him, “and vodka for your…friend?”  
  
The Pathfinder’s eyes darted to him, nervous again, and he smiled at her before turning it on Madeera.  “Friend,” he said assuredly, taking the glass from the tray and handing it to his guest.  She accepted it with great misgivings on her face, and he turned back to Madeera and murmured, “You might make the next one a double,” raising his glass to his lips to hide his mouth.  
  
Madeera raised whatever the asari had that passed for eyebrows at him and nodded, then gave the Pathfinder a much saucier nod before sauntering back out.  He turned back to her, raising his glass to her, and found her clutching hers, staring at him with almost hunted eyes.  
  
He paused, his glass centimeters from hers, and said, “Is…something the matter?”  
  
“No,” she said, too quickly, and her face said she knew she’d said it too quickly, but something desperate and nervous and terrified settled in her eyes even as she jutted her jaw forward again, trying to hide it.  
  
He studied her for a moment, soaked her in: the ponytail, the enviro suit, the not-unpretty face, the scar, the near-scowl, the terror, and something in him gave way; something shifted, deep underfoot, resettling the ground beneath him in ways he didn’t understand, and he shook his head a little and said, light and deliberate, “Ryder, when was the last time someone bought you a drink?”  
  
Her eyes darted to his and stayed there, a little shocked, a little hungry, a little hopeful, and he could hear her trying to match his tone as she said, “Oh, possibly six hundred years.”  And then she rolled her eyes to the ceiling, raising her eyebrows and biting her lip ( _oh_ , and that startled him too), and said in less even tones, “Possibly never.”  
  
Oh.  _Oh_.  How terribly precious.  How on Earth such a child—  
  
But not a child, he reminded himself.  A Pathfinder, and it wouldn’t do to forget that.  
  
“Ah,” he said, aware the silence had gone on nearly too long and she was hunching her shoulders to flee again.  “May I clarify something?”  
  
She shrugged, as if it were possible for her shoulders to get any closer to her ears.  “Sure,” she said.  
  
He leaned forward just a bit, just enough for her to catch her breath and her lip between her teeth again; and he held her gaze a moment, and then clinked his glass against hers and said, “Just.  A drink.”  
  
She stared at him and for a moment it was as if she saw the shifting ground beneath his feet, saw more than he meant her to, more than he thought was there to see— _just a drink_ , and was he telling her or himself?—and then her shoulders relaxed and she leaned back in her chair and raised her glass back to him.  “A drink,” she said, and then she tossed the whole thing back.  
  
He slid down the couch away from her, anticipating a violent reversal of her action, but none came; she put her fist to her mouth and turned her head, her face screwing up, but after a moment she swallowed hard and said around her fist, “Yeah.  Yeah, that burns.”  
  
“Another?” he asked.  
  
“Please,” she said, otherwise not moving from her position, and he couldn’t help raising his eyebrows; and then she glanced at him, and he was surprised to see the smile crinkling the edges of her eyes.  
  
_Oh_.  
  
Madeera returned, sooner than he’d been expecting, and soon enough he lost count of the number of shots she challenged him to match, let alone how many _she_ had.  He didn’t even like batarian vodka, but the way she _challenged_ him, especially three drinks in, with a wink and a smirk that knew she was out of her depth and reveled in it—well, he could hardly be so rude as to decline.  At some point, she stood up to demonstrate some relative part of a story about sniping a Nomad or something, and he laughed and next thing he knew she finished by flopping onto the couch next to him and finishing his drink.  
  
“Hey,” he objected, surprised to find that his fingers fumbled their first attempt to place another order.  
  
“Hey yourself,” she said, turning the glass upside-down and setting it on the ground with a haphazard _thunk_.  “It’s all on your tab.”  
  
“I know,” he said.  
  
“Which I’m sure we’re running up quite a bit,” she said.  
  
“Probably,” he agreed.  
  
“But,” she said, and he watched with ever-growing fascination as she slowly went sideways on the couch, “you’re not planning on paying for it,” and he barely ducked out of the way as she swung her legs up to rest her feet against the wall, “so,” and now her head hung off the couch, her arms dangling so that her fingers brushed the floor, “I don’t know why you care either way.”  
  
“It was _my_ drink,” he said.  
  
She rolled her eyes.  “So get yourself another one, _Reyes_ ,” she said, mimicking his tone, and for some reason he found himself laughing—at her?  With her?  Ah, he needed more alcohol if he was going to keep up with this.  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to share?”  
  
“Didn’t yours ever teach you it’s rude to steal?” he countered.  
  
“Not rude,” she said, and then she held up one finger and focused on it as though her next statement was dreadfully important.  “Academically dishonest.  Scientifically unsound.”  
  
“I see,” he said, not sure if he should be laughing, unable to help himself.  
  
Her face struggled against a grin as she tried to maintain her focus and went cross-eyed instead.  “You know,” she said, with a giggle in her otherwise somber voice, “you should always cite your sources.  Credit where credit is— _SAM_ , I don’t _care_.”  
  
Her smile was gone and her brow was furrowed and he thought these things should be reversed.  “Sam?” he asked.  
  
She rolled her eyes, her head lolling farther back, and she dropped her hand and fumbled towards his empty glass as she said, “Just giving me an update on—it doesn’t matter, I thought I told you to cancel all non-essential— _no_ , that was _not_ essential—I don’t care what Cora said in her email, she’s not the Pathfinder—”  
  
“Uh, Ryder,” he said, increasingly befuddled by the one-sided conversation, “who are you…talking to?”  
  
“SAM,” she said again as her fingers closed around the glass, and then she closed her eyes and put his empty glass to her lips and didn’t seem to notice when she didn’t actually drink anything.  “The AI my dad left in my head when he died.  Parting gift.  Part of being Pathfinder, or something.  At least that was what he told everyone else.  But he just wanted to keep it alive.”  
  
“It?”  
  
“I mean, I think he self-identifies as male, kind of, but who cares, he’s in _my_ head, I can call him an it if I want to.”  She opened her eyes and slammed the glass down on the ground so hard he thought it’d crack.  “I can do whatever I want and he can _mind his own damn business_.”  
  
  
  
  
  
He remembered sitting there, desperately wanting another drink, trying to interpret everything she’d just said while recovering from the physical force of the resentment in her voice.  He’d had so many questions.  He still did.  She couldn’t turn it off, but she could tell it not to listen…but could it ever truly be ignorant of her doings?  She didn’t know, but she liked to pretend it could.  “I don’t like to,” she’d clarified.  “I have to.  Or else I’d go crazy.”  She’d contemplated the empty glass in her hand.  “Crazier than I already have.”  
  
And now she stood—somewhere, in the shadows, using the AI at her disposal to track him to his innermost sanctum so that she could…what?  Scold him?  Finish what she’d left undone?  He didn’t know.  
  
If he knew her at all, he knew that she didn’t know, either.  
  
“So,” he said, holding his gun steady, “you found me.  Congratulations.  I know Sloane will appreciate learning the location of this base—she’s only been looking for it for a year.”  
  
“I’m not going to sell you out to Sloane,” she said, in the same tone that she used to chastise SAM, heavy annoyance mixed with spite.  
  
“Oh really?” he said, and he couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice, either.  “Then what _do_ you call it?”  
  
“I call it doing my damn job, Reyes,” she said, and _there_ , somewhere on his right, if he could keep her talking long enough to turn nonchalantly—“She called me in to be her backup.  I backed her up.”  
  
“Quite admirably,” he said.  “And are you pleased with the results?  How much of a cut is she asking for?  Fifteen percent?”  He couldn’t keep up the anger in his voice, and his next word ached with emptiness.  “Twenty?”  
  
“If you’re asking if I’d rather be doing business with you or Sloane, I would hope that’d be obvious,” she said, and he heard her move, a _click-click_ as her heels hit the stone, but he couldn’t tell which way she went.  Another minute and she’d have to reengage the stealth field.  
  
“Would you,” he said, giving in and slowly turning, keeping his gaze ahead of his gun, looking for a shadow in the wrong place.  He would probably shoot her.  He didn’t want to hear what she was going to say.  
  
She said it anyway.  “You _know_ me, Reyes.”  
  
“Yes,” he said, and against his will his eyes closed for a moment and he heard her drop the field.  By the time he opened them again, it was too late.  _Damn_.  “And you thought you knew me.”  
  
“I _do_ know you,” she said, and he’d never felt like this before, like his heart was some sort of living beating bleeding _target_ for her to practice on at her leisure.  He’d never—well, he’d never _felt_ before, as much as he’d always wanted to.  He’d always known he’d screw it up.  “Why else would I have come?”  
  
“To kill me, I’d guess,” he said, still turning, though he wasn’t really looking for her anymore.  She snorted, and he put his bleeding heart on a hook and tossed her the bait.  “To ask why?”  
  
He heard her breathe, not a gasp or a hiccup, but a long, slow, unsteady inhale that whispered of tears on her cheeks.  Still on his right.  He turned towards her, gun still raised, his hands steady from sheer habit.  He heard her exhale, and adjusted his aim.  “Something like that,” she said, and his finger rested on the trigger, waiting.  “And you’re off by about a foot.”  
  
His hands were up, arms close to his side and gun pointed at the ceiling, before he’d even really thought about it.  “Forgive me,” he said.  “I’m not a very good shot.”  
  
“Could have fooled me,” she said, and this time the _click_ of her heels was deliberate as she stepped away.  “That’s not what I’m asking.”  
  
“Then what are you asking?”  He didn’t want to hear her say it.  He longed to hear her voice.  And then as she remained silent, he remembered he had an entire underground operation to dismantle and reassemble in twenty-four hours, the careful fruit of _months_ of work, and he didn’t have time for this.  Surely someone would call in soon, asking for instructions, and put an end to his masochistic wonderings—  
  
She said, carefully, as if she’d wrestled with her phrasing, “Why didn’t you ask me for help?”  
  
Not the question he’d been expecting, but the answer was the same.  “What, and tell you everything?”  
  
“Would that have been so bad?”  
  
He started to say _yes_ , but the word stayed on his tongue; he knew her, after all, and more to the point he _wanted_ her, and having her by his side would not have been so bad, not at all.  “Well,” he said, “no.”  
  
She tsked at him and her voice echoed less, now, as if she’d stepped away from the walls.  Trust the Pathfinder to be the only person in Andromeda who would _tsk_.  “Quit playing games, Reyes,” she said.  
  
“What,” he said, “no secrets?”  
  
He wondered if she was as surprised as he was at the _longing_ in his voice, a longing he couldn’t keep from his expression, at the wistful wrenching in his chest as he said it.  But she only said, “No secrets,” quietly, and of course she’d never had any secrets from him.  
  
  
  
  
  
“You know what I like about you, Reyes?” she’d said, after they’d killed Zia, sitting on the couch with her feet up and not quite touching his knee, helmet and gloves on the floor, drinking her second vodka “for the road” before heading back to the _Tempest_.  She’d been there for an hour already, and he only knew that because he’d caught a glimpse of the timestamp on Madeera’s omnitool.  He had work to be doing; he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.  
  
“My devilish good looks?” he said, drinking his brandy, his hand on his knee, close enough to rest it on her boot instead, if he so chose.  
  
“There’s that,” she said, completely unperturbed, and what a _change_ from her first visit that was.  He should have been keeping track of how many times she’d stopped by.  He’d lost count.  “I like that you’re,” and she ticked them off on her fingers, “not Nexus, not Tempest, not Outcast, not angara—” and she stumbled over that one, her gaze shifting to the middle distance for a moment, before she sighed and continued, “—and not…oh, what’s the name of the other gang around here?”  
  
“The Collective?” he said, and he could taste the irony on his tongue, surprisingly bitter.  He was proud of his work.  She didn’t have to know that.  
  
“Right.  Not them.”  She finished her list and took another swallow of vodka.  “And you’re not SAM.”  
  
“How astute of you to notice that I am not, in fact, an AI in your brain,” he said.  “Truly, the tales of the Pathfinder’s talents of perception were not exaggerations.”  
  
She stuck her tongue out at him.  He couldn’t remember the last time someone had done that.  Hardened criminals and starving exiles tended to make their points with guns or knives or their fists.  He’d never seen an angara stick out their tongue, either.  This girl was…  
  
Something.  
  
And saying something, at that.  “I’m trying to say—thank you, I guess,” she said, looking down at her drink.  “For…being someone I can talk to.”  
  
He struggled against a harsh laugh, half-choking on the sound, and she glanced up at him with reddening cheeks.  “I can’t say,” he said, and then he found himself without a comeback, heard Zia’s voice echoing in his mind, _oh honey_ , and he wanted to—protect her, from himself, if need be, “that…anyone’s…ever said that about me before.”  
  
“That’s because you talk too much,” she said, apparently relieved that he wasn’t laughing at her.  
  
“Is that a bad thing?”  
  
“Only sometimes,” she said, with a half-smile that gave him…butterflies?  What was he, twelve?  She wasn’t even _pretty_ , at least not _that_ pretty, at least—ah, shit.  
  
“You can’t talk to your crew?” he asked, trying to deflect her attention from his…whatever was happening in his traitorous insides.  
  
It worked; she rolled her eyes and leaned her head back, looking at the ceiling.  “Not really,” she said.  “Some of them sometimes, maybe.  Vetra’ll listen, but she’s _so cool_ ,” she said, and for a moment he thought about interjecting that what, he wasn’t?  “Drack’s a good ear too, but he’s also…I don’t know, we all have to live together, you know?  I can’t go blabbing to Cora about Liam’s latest rash decision without the doc finding out and trying to bring us together for ‘mediation.’”  She lifted her hands to do air quotes and espied her vodka, and her eyes narrowed.  “Though at least they’re all willing to talk to me.  Jaal—”  She stopped, and then took a long swallow of her drink.  
  
“Jaal?”  
  
“I don’t want to talk about Jaal,” she said.  
  
“I thought you said you could talk to me.”  
  
“You don’t want me to talk about Jaal,” she said, and she looked at him oddly and his stomach informed him via its uncomfortable squirming that here was—a rival?  Was he actively vying for her attention, now?  No, he had her attention, that had been easy enough—her affection, then?  _Reyes_.  He took a long swig of brandy.  He had to get this under control.  Zia was right.  He liked her too much.  
  
“Liam?”  Yes, get her to talk about other men, _that_ would help.  
  
“Oh, you haven’t met him,” she said.  “He’s not allowed to communicate with anyone outside the crew until we solve a little problem of his.”  
  
At least the pain had left her voice; at least the tension had shifted.  “Little problem?” he asked.  
  
She shook her head and sat back up.  “Don’t ask.  I don’t think I even understand the whole of it.”  
  
He watched her, almost afraid of his next question.  “And when will you be solving it?”  
  
She shrugged.  “It’s on the other butt end of the cluster, so who knows?”  She rubbed at her temple with the hand holding the glass; not effective, and so she rested the glass against her skin.  He wanted to rub her temples, her shoulders.  He set down his brandy; it clearly wasn’t helping the situation.  “It’s the _other butt end of the cluster_.  I have to make sure we have fuel and supplies and we won’t even be halfway there before everyone starts complaining about the food because we can’t get their fancy favorites unless we dock somewhere civilized—”  
  
He saw an opening, and a chance to disguise his fond smile.  “What, and Kadara doesn’t count?”  
  
“Shockingly, no,” she said, opening her eyes and scanning the room again.  “Although I bet if I let Liam out he’d hook us up.  The black market for food here has to be crazy, especially with Sloane taking all the best stuff for herself.  He’d be all over that.”  
  
“But you won’t let him out?”  He raised an eyebrow.  
  
She took another sip of vodka, rested the glass against her temple again, closed her eyes, and said, slowly, “Hell, no.”  After a moment she added, “He wants to help.  He’s trying to cover all the angles.  But he keeps doing it behind my back and I can’t _help_ him if he does that, and when things go south _I’m_ the one who has to cover up for him, or deal with the angry natives, or—see,” she said, “this is what I’m talking about.”  
  
“Oh?” he said, feeling a different sort of squirming, one he wasn’t particularly familiar with.  Guilt, perhaps?  
  
“I can _talk_ to you,” she said.  “I’ve been wanting to say that for—ages—but I haven’t had anyone to say it to.”  She opened her eyes, but her gaze cut to the floor.  “I miss my brother.”  
  
The air hung heavy with—the burdens of the Pathfinder, he supposed, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to trivialize them; but he wanted to lift them, all the same, and so he said, “Your brother?”  
  
“Scott.  I’ve told you about him,” she said, looking back to him, surprised, and he couldn’t suppress the beginnings of the smile on his face.  
  
“Oh yes,” he said.  “I just hope…” and he saw the suspicion growing on her face, and his smile widened in response, “you are not thinking of _me_ as—”  
  
“Quit while you’re ahead,” she said, but she was blushing.  
  
He couldn’t resist.  “I’m just saying,” he said, “I would hate to think I’ve misunderstood—”  
  
“You haven’t misunderstood a damn thing,” she said, but she didn’t look as annoyed as she sounded—she looked…soft, studying him with a fondness he didn’t deserve, and he found himself wanting to shy away—but more than that he _hungered_ for that look, for the uncomplicated care in her eyes.  “I’m an open book, Reyes Vidal, and you know it.”  
  
“Do I?” he said.  
  
“You’ve seen me try to be subtle,” she said, exasperated now, though more with herself than him, he thought.  She was still looking at him; he was still helpless against her.  “You know how well that goes.”  
  
“I’ve seen you do very well,” he said, only half-lying.  
  
“Not for lack of trying,” she said, and she finished off her vodka, leaning over to set the glass on the floor.  “I think the phrase that applies here is ‘painfully obvious.’”  
  
“Perhaps you merely have nothing to hide,” he said, and he envied her as he said it.  
  
She snorted, still leaning over.  “I have plenty I want to hide,” she said, and then she sat back up.  “I’m just no good at it.  But not here,” she said firmly, with just a touch of vodka at the edges of her words.  
  
“You’re good at it here?”  
  
“I don’t have anything I want to hide, here,” she said, and she looked around the room again.  
  
He thought about asking if she was looking for cameras, but instead what came out was, “No secrets?”  
  
She gave a little shake of her head, still looking around the room, that fondness crinkling the corners of her eyes, curving the line of her lips.  “No secrets,” she said.  “At least, none that will leave this room.”  
  
He wanted—too many things.  Her, for starters, her secrets and her smiles and her lips against his and more than that; he wanted to give her his secrets, which was stupid and potentially deadly but he wanted—he wanted her to go on looking at him like that, and she wouldn’t, not if—but what if she did—he wanted her to—he wanted to give her anything, everything; he wanted to make her stay.  He wanted her to _want_ to stay.  He had so much work to do and he was so _close_ and he wanted to accomplish it and he wanted to throw it away and leave Kadara behind in a cloud of dust if it meant he could be by her side.  He couldn’t leave Kadara to its fate; he wanted to.  He wanted…  
  
  
  
  
  
Ah, it didn’t matter now.  “I thought,” he said, and then he stopped, gun still aimed at the ceiling, unsure if he wanted to lower it, unsure if he wanted to finish his thought.  
  
“Did you?” she said, acidic as Kadara’s lakes, dripping onto his raw nerves.  
  
“I liked the way you looked at me,” he said, rushing it, afraid of his own honesty and barreling on in spite of it.  “I didn’t want that to…change.”  
  
He heard the _smack_ as one of her hands presumably made contact with her helmet.  “Well, it did,” she said, “so good job on that one.  I— _gah_ ,” she said, and now he could picture her trying to rub her forehead.  “I would have helped you.  I don’t even _like_ Sloane.”  
  
“You don’t like the Charlatan, either,” he said.  
  
“Not very much, no,” she said, and that stung, perhaps most of all because of how flippant she seemed.  “His people seem to favor dirty tricks.”  
  
“And Sloane’s are any better?”  
  
“Of course not.  Of _course_ not.  But _you_ are,” she said, and suddenly he felt the pressure of her finger jabbing itself into his sternum.  He could reach out and grab her wrist, even without seeing her; he was too stunned to move.  “You _are_ , Reyes, and that’s the worst part of all this.”  
  
He couldn’t reach for her without lowering his gun.  If he lowered the gun, she would definitely run.  He wasn’t fool enough to drop it.  He was fool enough to hope she wouldn’t move.  “Is it?”  
  
She sighed and her finger fell away; he counted her steps, _one two three_ , and then lowered his gun, made a show of holstering it before crossing his arms, turning slowly after the sound of her boots on the stone as she didn’t bother to hide them.  
  
She said, “I said you were a better man, and I meant it, Reyes.  I think you _want_ to be a better man.  I even—look, I get it,” she said, “fighting fire with fire, like Sloane putting kett heads on pikes outside the port.  You think the best way to defeat your enemy is to sink to their level, because you think afterwards you can wash your hands and handle things on _your_ level and everyone will just pretend nothing happened but these things _follow_ you, Reyes,” she said, her voice landing on his name with equal parts frustration and desperation.  “Even if you stay in the shadows—even if no one else knows— _you_ know what you’ve done.”  
  
“What I haven’t done,” he said, because she was at least right that his failure in Draullir would haunt him for the rest of his life.  “What I would have done, if you had—”  
  
“Let you murder your rival in cold blood?  It’s one thing to break your word to a girl about paying for her drink,” she said.  “It’s another to betray someone to their death.”  
  
“You don’t know what I’ve done,” he said, and now he wished he still had his gun in his hands, wanted to show her how dangerous and cold he could be—though killing the Pathfinder wouldn’t be doing Kadara any favors in the long run, but for a moment he didn’t care about long-term—she’d already shot all his plans to hell anyway, might as well live for the moment.  He wanted to wring her neck.  
  
If he got his hands on her, he’d kiss her senseless, and maybe she’d forget her disappointment.  
  
“I’ve heard the rumors,” she said.  “You have a pattern of getting others to commit your crimes for you.”  
  
“It’s for Kadara,” he said, and he sounded a little pathetic in his own ears, and that just made him angry.  “And who are you, to think you can come in here and tell me how to run my operation?  You think because you’ve spent a few days in the badlands that you know what it’s been like, living on the edge?  You don’t know half of what I’ve done, what I’m capable of.  You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed—”  
  
“Your sense of decency?”  
  
“—to try to overthrow Sloane before she drives the port into the ground.  Or worse.  She won’t stop the killing, and your precious outpost will be caught in the middle of it—”  
  
“Until she’s hunted down the last of the Collective?”  
  
He laughed again, laughed at her skeptical tone, knowing it masked a tenuous optimism, wanting to bring her to understand the despair she’d unleashed on him, the doom she’d brought upon Kadara.  “You think that just because I’m gone, no one else will come along to unseat her?  We exiles are a desperate lot, and power is the surest way to security.”  
  
“And no one would come along to challenge you, if you were sitting in her chair?” she said.  “By your reasoning, there’ll always be conflict.”  
  
“Only if the ones with the power refuse to share it,” he said.  “Sloane’s iron grip on the exiles is no better than Tann’s rule aboard the Nexus.  I wanted to bring _change_ —”  
  
“—by employing the same tactics as Sloane.  Forgive me,” she said, and her sarcasm lanced him to the bone, “if I don’t see the difference.”  
  
He spread his arms wide.  “So you were wrong,” he said.  “I’m no better than she, after all.”  
  
“You had a _choice_ ,” she said, “and thanks to me, you still do.”  
  
He laughed again, shaking his head.  “Oh, do I?  I’m so sorry,” he said, “have you not noticed that my operation is in shambles, my people on the run?  All thanks to you, _Pathfinder_ ,” he said, knowing it would make her flinch, and he gave an elaborate bow; and when he straightened, she was standing before him, holding her helmet against her hip, her expression drained of all the anger and frustration he’d heard in her voice, leaving her looking—weary, as weary as he’d ever seen her.  He’d wanted to lift that weariness, not be its cause.  Another failure.  
  
And then she said, “You can have the outpost.”  
  
At least, that was what he thought she said, or at least, that was what his ears heard, but his mind couldn’t make sense of the words, and so he went on staring at her.  She rolled her eyes and closed them and said, “You.  Can have.  The outpost.”  
  
“Meaning—”  
  
“Meaning you give me a list of names, and when the Nexus team shows up, I hand it to them and tell them to hire them all on at my recommendation.  Meaning you get first access to all its resources, before Sloane comes to take her cut.  Meaning you get access to Nexus requisitions.  Meaning—”  
  
He still couldn’t believe his ears; his eyes narrowed, though hers were still closed.  “Hide in plain sight?”  
  
“Well, not _you_ ,” she said, and then she looked at him and tried to smile.  The effect left him feeling as if he’d kicked a puppy.  “Sloane can’t take out every Nexus operative, but she could probably get away with a single murder.  You should…lay low.”  
  
“And do what, exactly?”  
  
“Catch your breath,” she said, looking back to the ceiling.  “Regroup.  Come up with a better way to challenge Sloane, on _your_ terms, not hers.”  
  
“That’s exactly—”  
  
“No,” she said, and now she was stern, and that had always made him laugh, when she tried to be _hard_ ; but now she succeeded, and his heart ached with the loss.  “Your little stunt was an attempt to beat her at her own game.  Don’t do that again.  You go up against Sloane, you do it in broad daylight—don’t look at me like that, everyone _knows_ who you are now,” she said, and of course they did, of course that would have been the first thing Sloane did, and he fought the urge to back into the shadows, the rising panic in his chest.  He wasn’t meant to be out in front, garnering _attention_.  “You do it in front of everybody, and you win, fair and square.”  
  
“And if I lose?” he said, unsteady.  
  
She shrugged.  “Then I’m stuck with Sloane.”  And then she glanced at him with loss in her eyes and said, equally unsteady, “Don’t lose.”  
  
“And if I win?” he said, taking a step closer to her without thinking about it, _wanting_ —  
  
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose; when she opened them again, she fixed her gaze on her boots and said, “Then it’s your chance to be someone.”  
  
  
  
  
  
“You’re someone to me,” she said, and it was stupid, _stupid_ , and her voice told him that she knew it was stupid and that she thought _she_ was stupid and lame and that last bit set him in motion, leaning into her and reaching for her and not stopping until he had her cheek in his palm and his fingers in her hair and her lips against his, and now that she wasn’t putting on a show for security her mouth was soft and uncertain, as if even in the midst of him actually kissing her she didn’t believe—  
  
He broke away and looked at her with a furrowed brow, and something in his expression made her smile, made her cup his cheek in return.  “Careful,” she said, and then she leaned in and brushed her lips against his with an expertise he wasn’t expecting, “I might start thinking you like me.”  
  
“Oh,” he said, still startled, and she closed the little distance between them, until he could feel the shape of her underneath the padded leather of her uniform, _oh_ , and habit finished the sentence for him, “would that be so bad?”  
  
She smiled at him, just a little quirk of the lips, her eyes sparkling with whiskey and anticipation and—and something he couldn’t quite name, something he’d never seen before, something more than fondness or affection or—something _genuine_ , something true, something he’d spent two lifetimes looking for until he’d given up, thinking maybe it didn’t exist.  “I don’t think so,” she said, and then she closed her eyes and before he could miss the look in them she was kissing him with— _feeling_ , and he was kissing her as he’d never kissed a woman before, feeling fragile against the force of her surety, and maybe—  
  
—but it was a _lie_ , a damned lie, maybe true for someone else but not for him, not for a charlatan trading on stealing her secrets and giving her lies in return—but his lips were true, catching hers, and his hands were honest as they cradled her head and he tangled his fingers in her hair to draw her nearer, and he wanted to be nothing more than this moment and the whiskey and the setting sun and the gentle fire of her kiss and the trust in her voice as she put her lips to his ear and whispered, “I could get used to this.”  
  
  
  
  
  
And what good was being someone if it meant being nothing to her?  
  
  
  
  
  
“Why?” he asked, and she went on staring at her boots.  “Why offer this to me?”  
  
“Because,” she said, and then with an effort she lifted her head, though she still didn’t meet his gaze.  “If I’m right, then I get rid of Sloane and gain an ally who owes me in one swoop.  And if I’m wrong,” she tried to shrug away the catch in her voice, “then you’re the outpost’s problem and the Nexus can send their own security forces to deal with you.”  
  
And then she said in a rush, before he could reply, “Because I can’t trust someone who doesn’t trust me, but I _know_ you, Reyes, and I—”  She looked at him and if before she’d looked at him like she held the world at her fingertips then now he saw only ruin and desolation, a cratered wasteland—and yet, and _yet_ , even now, a glimmer of light on the distant horizon.  
  
She wouldn’t say it; he saw her guarding her heart, pressing her lips together before she could give it voice.  But she looked at him and she _hoped_ , and it nearly drove him to his knees.  
  
Nearly.  
  
“Well,” he said, and his voice cracked all the same and he watched as her lips disappeared, the corners of her mouth trembling, and how _dare_ she—but he couldn’t bring himself to stay angry, and the bitterness that remained was a familiar thing, and far safer than hope.  “I’ll see what I can do.”  
  
“See that you do,” she said, and then she met his gaze, hard again, and said, “I told Sloane and I’ll tell you again:  no funny business.  No more heads on pikes, no more beating on Kaetus to get her attention, no more goading people into murder—”  
  
He couldn’t help his laugh.  “You told Sloane all this?  You think she listened?”  
  
“She owes me,” she said, and he’d never heard her sound as if she had an inkling of what that meant on Kadara, not really; now she carried the threat easily, confident and deadly, but he read the cost of it in her face, a mixture of anger and loathing curling her lip in a way he didn’t like.  His fault again.  
  
“Does she,” he said, and then to his horror he reached for her; he stopped himself halfway, his hand dropping back to his side, and said, “Why?”  
  
She tilted her head, looking weary again, and said, “Why what?”  
  
“Do you really prefer her company?” he asked, and it wasn’t what he wanted to say but he didn’t know how to ask without implicating—  
  
“No,” she said.  
  
And that could have been enough, but he couldn’t stop himself.  “Then _why_?”   
  
She looked at him, long and level and cool and sad, as if she heard his breaking heart and was too tired to care; and then she shrugged her shoulders and let them drop and said simply, “Because she trusted the Pathfinder.  And you…didn’t.”  
  
Now he dropped his gaze, unable to face the pity in hers.  She was right and he had no defense and he just wanted her gone, _gone_ , but he’d never be able to escape her, not really, not with her outpost under his control and the memory of her lips on his under his skin.  She would walk away and never come back and he’d never be free—  
  
but he’d have Kadara.  
  
It wasn’t worth the price, but he’d already paid it.  
  
“Very well, then,” he said.  “I’ll send Keema with the list.”  
  
“I’ll tell them to be on the lookout for it,” she said, and then she scuffed the ground with her boot and his heart beat painfully in his chest and she said, “When the time comes—no promises,” she said, and then she met his gaze, just for a moment, and said, “If you need backup.”  
  
He couldn’t find the words around the lump in his throat, his mouth dry, and so he nodded.  “No promises,” she said again, “but maybe.”  
  
“Maybe,” he said.  “Maybe not.”  
  
She raised her eyebrows as she tilted her head in acknowledgment, and then she looked down at her helmet as it rested on her hip and said, “Maybe not.”  
  
The time had clearly come for her to leave, and she clearly couldn’t find a suave way to do it, was reduced to avoiding his gaze and searching for an exit; and how like her, how _like_ her, and he couldn’t help smiling, though his eyes prickled.  
  
A final parting gift, then.  He stepped away from her, back towards the console, breaking the spell; and a moment later she turned and started walking towards the exit, lifting her helmet as she did so.  He watched her go, the hunch of her shoulders, the unconscious grace of her steps, the swing of her ponytail; and he called out, “Ryder.”  
  
She paused, helmet resting atop her head, and he said, as helpless before her as he’d ever been, “For what it’s worth…you’re one hell of a woman.”  
  
She turned her head enough to cut one narrowed eye at him, and then she said simply, “Be better, Reyes.”  
  
And then in one smooth motion she slipped the helmet over her head and vanished from his sight.  
  
  
  
  
  
The half-empty bottle of whiskey sat on his left; her body stretched to his right, her head pillowed in his lap, her eyes closed.  The sky above had turned from sunset to dusk, a chill in the air nipping at his cheek, and his feet, dangling over the edge, were starting to go numb.  And for a moment, looking down at her, he was…content.  
  
And then he cracked his neck and carefully shifted his weight so that both his hands were free, doing his best not to disturb her, and opened his omni-tool.  Shipping reports, the dockmaster’s schedule, news of recent kett engagements, requisition request from the Resistance, a message from Keema saying she’d smoothed over his exit and hoped he was enjoying himself, _wink_ , and he made a face.  She’d give him hell in the morning.  He reached for the whiskey and took another swig, looking down at the woman sleeping in his lap.  Worth it.  
  
And then his notification flashed once, then in a brief but complicated pattern indicating encryption, and he sat up a little straighter, punching in the access code.  The sender was clearly a spoof, and the message—a string of—coordinates.  
  
_Finally_.  He’d been waiting a week for Hollan to pull an ambush location, somewhere the sniper felt he could comfortably set up without giving himself away, plenty of room to take a shot but not open enough to be suspicious—he entered the coordinates into his map, shifting them by a few degrees just in case, scanning nearby—a cave, there, not impossible to access, not too near any operatives—perfect.  Adrenaline cleared the whiskey from his system, set his leg to jittering— _finally_.  All his hard work, all his patience, and now—  
  
Now he had the Pathfinder sleeping in his lap; he stilled his leg and looked at her again, and for a moment he thought—Hollan was good, but she was better.  He could—what, tell her everything?  Ask for her help?  _By the way, Shena isn’t my only code name_.  The Charlatan _was_ much better; the Charlatan was infinitely worse.  She’d be horrified, at best; she certainly wouldn’t agree to the plan.  
  
She might have a better plan.  
  
She wouldn’t want him anymore, and that shouldn’t have mattered—well, of course it would have mattered a little, but more importantly he shouldn’t have cared what she thought one way or another.  He had a plan to execute and a mission to accomplish and while she was—well, everything, maybe, but maybe not—she could wait.  He could explain afterwards, when he was handing her Kadara on a silver platter.  A tarnished platter, but it would be hers, nonetheless, and perhaps that would ease the shock.  Afterwards, he’d explain.  
  
He didn’t have to explain anything.  He wanted to tell her—everything.  
  
Without opening her eyes, she said, “Didn’t realize I was so boring.”  
  
He closed his omni-tool immediately.  “I…thought you were asleep.”  
  
“Maybe,” she said, and then she opened one eye and peered up at him.  “Why didn’t you wake me up?”  
  
“What, wake the Pathfinder?” he said.  “Everyone says she needs all the rest she can get.”  She snorted and closed her eye again, but a sharp crease appeared between her eyebrows.  “Besides,” he said, rather than trying to smooth it away, “you’re cute when you’re asleep.”  
  
The crease deepened.  “Cute?” she said, in a despairing sort of way.  
  
“Well,” he said, and then, not having realized how much he’d thought so until he’d said it aloud, he ended, “yes.”  
  
“Eugh,” she said—and she was also the only person he’d ever met who _said_ things like that, who so precisely articulated her noises of disgust.  “Cute.”  
  
“And what’s wrong with cute?”  
  
She opened her eyes to roll them.  “I just—cute?  Not…sexy and dangerous?”  He pressed his lips together, and she winced and ventured, “Or, I don’t know, confident and deadly?  I mean, _cute_?”  
  
“Cute,” he said, and then he swallowed his laugh and said, “I like that you’re not those things.”  
  
That had been entirely too honest, and he hadn’t realized it until he said it, his voice deep and quiet and trailing off.  Her gaze was steady on his face and he knew she saw his hesitation, saw…too much, and for once in his life, he didn’t mind.  
  
“Oh,” she said, soft and gentle and trusting and far, far too good for him.  “Well.  You’d be the first.”  
  
“Their loss,” he said, and he brushed her hair off her forehead.  
  
She smiled, lazily, and half-closed her eyes under his caress, and so he trailed his fingers down the side of her face, danced them along the twisted edges of her scar.  She sighed, deep in her chest, and he wondered how difficult it would be to kiss her again and she opened her eyes and looked beyond him and said, “So, any of these constellations got names?”  
  
Startled, he followed her gaze.  The neon lights of Kadara Port never slept, but the atmosphere was thin and the haze clung to the valleys, and here and there clusters of stars twinkled across the sky.  He watched, too, as she lifted a hand and drew lines between them, tracing shapes he couldn’t quite follow, didn’t quite grasp, and then he caught her hand and kissed it; and when he looked down, she was looking at him.  
  
“Not to my knowledge,” he said, and then, because he could, he rested his cheek against her palm.  “All yours, Pathfinder.”  
  
Her fingers curled against his cheek, stiff, and he kept the wince from his face and turned his head enough to kiss her palm, here the callus where she held her gun, there the little scar from rock climbing with her family when she’d been ten—she’d just wanted to keep up, she’d said, didn’t tell them she’d hurt herself, wanted to show her dad she was tough, like him, gotten an infection and nearly lost her hand—he kissed the scar again, and again, and she said, “I hate it.  You know that, right?”  
  
“Do you?” he asked, his lips against her skin, and he felt her shiver, her fingers uncurl enough to press into him.  
  
“Yeah,” she said, and she slid her hand down his cheek, pulling a little at his lips, fingers catching on his chin before falling away to rest on her stomach.  “Yeah, I really do.”  Her eyes were on the stars again, but she wasn’t avoiding him, and he found himself relishing the silence.  
  
“But,” she said, eventually.  
  
“But,” he said, covering her hand with his.  
  
“If I woke up tomorrow,” she said, not resisting as he turned her hand over and traced his fingers along hers, “if I woke up tomorrow and they said congratulations, we’ve found a way to transfer SAM, and Cora can take over like she was always meant to, thank you for your service, you’re free to go…if I could go anywhere or do anything…I mean, what would I do, that wasn’t this?”  She sighed and closed her eyes again, her brow furrowing again, and she said, “I hate it, and I don’t think I could give it up.”  
  
He understood, but more than that her fingers were long and lovely and he wanted them touching him again, and more than _that_ he wanted her to know—that _he_ knew—and how to let her know, without explaining?  She couldn’t resist her path, even when it brought nothing but pain and doubt and confusion; he wished he could give her certainty, though he of all people knew the folly of _that_.  
  
She opened her eyes and looked beyond him and whispered, “There’s just so many stars.”  
  
“Yes,” he said, seeing only the faintest reflection of them in her eyes, and he watched as she refocused and noticed his gaze.  
  
“And,” she said, more lightly, though he felt the effort it took, “a black hole pulling us closer every minute.”  
  
“Ah,” he said, “of course, that.  Charming as always, Ryder.”  
  
“Inescapably so,” she said, and her eyes lit up at her own terrible joke.  He shook his head, and she started to smile.  “Like someone else I know.”  
  
“I’m not quite sure I’m flattered,” he said, and she grinned.  
  
“Well,” she said, “I wouldn’t quite call you a gravitational well out of which no light can escape, but, you know.  Pretty close.”  
  
He shook his head again, though her grin delighted him.  “You are…strange,” he said, and she laughed outright, and then she kept laughing, and he said, “What?”  
  
“I’m trying to decide,” she said, and she licked her lips and he thought it’d be better if she were kissing him with them instead of talking, “what kind of space anomaly that would make me—”  
  
“No,” he said, and then his hand closed on hers and tugged until she sat up and he kissed her to shut her up, because kissing her was _fun_ , because for a moment they were nothing more than two starry-eyed idiots with nothing between them and he tasted freedom on her lips.  
  
And then she drew away, bumping his nose with hers as she went, and said, “You know.”  
  
“If you are about to give me a lesson about space anomalies—” he said, leaning back in.  
  
He thought he had her but at the last moment she gave him the barest brush of her lips and then pulled away again, teasing.  “No,” she said.  “More…an invitation.  To study them.”  
  
He narrowed his eyes and she bit her lip and she was nervous and not-quite looking at him as she said, “You know.  If you ever want to…see them up close.  There’s a few extra bunks,” she said, and _oh_ , he started to understand, “on the _Tempest_.  I could…” she glanced at him, still biting at her lip, “put your name on one of them, maybe.”  
  
“Oh,” he said, looking less at her eyes and more at her lip as she continued to worry it between her teeth, trying to distract himself from the enormity of the question before him.  “That’s…tempting.”  
  
He made the mistake of meeting her gaze, then, and she went calm and steady which meant he must’ve been desperate, but oh, he _wanted_ —but a steady stream of coordinates flashed before his eyes, and she said, “I know you’ve got business.”  
  
“Ah,” he said, _you have no idea_ , but no, afterwards, afterwards.  “A few loose ends, certainly,” and he couldn’t resist running his fingers into her hair again, drawing her closer, resting his forehead against hers; couldn’t resist imagining, for a moment, that he could follow her now and never look back.  “Are you going so soon?”  
  
“Maybe,” she said, unsteady and breathless.  “Maybe not.  Maybe we could…” and somehow her lips were against his as she kept talking and he wasn’t quite paying attention anymore, “stop back by?  I mean,” she said, and then he pulled her into him, sealed her mouth with his, tasting whiskey and hope and tantalizing possibilities even as every soft sound she made in his ear reminded him that he was a liar but oh, he _didn’t care_ , he’d explain later, “first,” and then her hands were pulling on the lapel of his jacket as she climbed into his lap, “we have to establish the outpost, so, you know, it might be—but after that—really—oh—whenever—”  
  
And it wasn’t like he’d have to be planetside to run things, _liar, liar_ , and maybe she’d never have to know—no—she’d have to—but she wouldn’t mind, she’d understand, he’d explain—and somehow it was so much easier to lie to himself.  “That,” he said, pulling back enough to tease her, laughing as she bumped his nose with hers again, seeking his mouth, and this was a truth, “would be nice.”  
  
She kissed him again and he drowned in it, in her giddy relief and anticipation and excitement and hope and he should have stopped her, should have stopped himself, should have told her _it’s not that simple_ , _but maybe we can figure it out_ , should have—and he still could— _tell her_ , but she drew away and her eyes sparkled at him and he smiled back instead, too soft and too glad, and afterwards—  
  
Afterwards, he could be the man she wanted him to be.  
  
“Yeah,” she said, her smile brighter than the neon lights below, and then before he could say anything else she nuzzled up to him, resting her head on his shoulder, turning her nose into his neck, resting her hand on his chest.  
  
His heart beat against her palm, a lie and a promise in equal turns; her breathing was easy, warm and content on his skin, trusting, and he _wanted_ and she’d give and he’d take and give in return—soon enough.  Soon.  
  
It would have to be enough.  
  
“I think,” she said, lifting her hand, pointing, “that one looks like a fish.”  
  
“I see it,” he said, tracing one in turn, and their fingers tangled around each other as they traced a path between the stars.


End file.
